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Pardon my ignorance, but what about Tor keeps the FBI from being able to take a site down? Is it distributed or something?
by jammygit 8y ago
Pardon my ignorance, but what about Tor keeps the FBI from being able to take a site down? Is it distributed or something?
- ddtaylor 8y agoLaw enforcement does one of two things to "take down" a site: 1. Seize servers via an IP address 2. Seize a domain record itself and redirect it Both of these "attacks" are not possible with Tor hidden services, because a.) there is no IP associated with the hidden service (although Tor in theory is subject to traffic correlation) and b.) there is no domain record that can be redirected unless you actually have the corresponding private key since Tor hidden service addresses are the public component of that keypair.
- lostgame 8y agoWell, the obvious difficulty is in nailing the specific IP address, and thusly the location of the server hosting the content, due to the obfuscation that TOR provides. It’s essentially the same reason you’re safe browsing it. The issue, however, is that web sites always need to be hosted on a physical server somewhere, and all it takes is one social media account or email that gives away some aspect of your identity or location for them to find it - assuming you’re doing something illegal of course. There’s nothing inherently illegal with hosting TOR sites. :P That doesn’t mean that shutdowns don’t happen, though. The FBI recently shut down a number of TOR sites with illegal content.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]